Dental implants are commonly use in dental procedures. Often when a tooth has been removed, an implant is placed in the jaw bone and a dental prosthesis is then positioned using the implant. The implant is incorporated in the bone material and provides a suitable anchor for various types of dental prostheses.
Typically, when a dental implant is to be installed, a dentist prepares a cast of the patient's dental arch. That cast is then forwarded to a dental lab for creation of a suitable template. When the lab has determined the appropriate implant location to be used given the conditions of the patient's dental arch, the lab forwards a suitable template to the dentist. The dentist, guided by the template, installs the implant.
One of the problems that can arise in this situation is that the template provides only a rough or imprecise guide as to where the dentisit should place the implant. Practically speaking, the dentist is allowed considerable leeway in selecting the final position of the implant when using a template. Thus, because the dentist is given some leeway in deciding where the implant is to be placed, the location of the implant is not controlled and may not reflect the position intended by the laboratory. The error in location may be in several different directions. The implant may be positioned either left or right or forward or aft of the location expected by the lab. Also the location of the axis of the implant may be at an angle to that originally considered by the lab. Finally, the depth of the implant in the bone is also controlled by the dentist. All of these locations may vary from that originally intended by the lab. Accordingly, the design of the prosthesis may be non-ideal in terms of strength, esthetic appearance or the biological response it provokes.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a system which would provide better correlation between the intended location of a dental implant and the location at which the dental implant is installed by the dentist.